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During a recent lesson activity involving complete and
incomplete sentences, I asked my students why it was important to learn the
concept. A girl at the back of the carpet quickly and enthusiastically raised
her hand. I called on her and repeated my question, “Why is it important to
know how to write and speak in complete sentences?” She confidently responded,
“So we will do good on a test.” My heart sank. Recently, it seemed that the
purpose of my students’ learning was to succeed with an upcoming test. I
prodded a bit more, and asked her how complete sentences would help her in
life, not just on a test. She looked confused. She finally responded, “So we
will pass our tests in college.”
With the increased pressure of the No Child Left Behind Act,
my students were becoming excellent test takers. They were arriving to school
with expressionless faces and completing assignments and assessments with
glazed over eyes. They were unable to make connections between the real world
and their learning. My students were meeting state standards and achieving the
numbers to meet state testing goals, but they were lacking the ability to have
conversations and thought provoking discussions with community members, develop
create solutions to community problems, or lead groups of people to better the
community they belonged to. I couldn’t blame testing alone. As a teacher, I was
failing my students in preparing them for a future in the real world. I needed
improve my instruction, the types of the activities I was included, and the
selection of assignments I was giving.
After my conversation with my student about the purpose of
learning about complete sentences, I realized that I needed to help my students
realize that their learning was worth so much more than a mere test score. I
wanted my students to value education as a way to positively shape and mold
their own lives and the lives around them. With this research proposal, I
created a classroom environment where my students learned through community
service. I assisted them in making connections between the knowledge they
gained in school with the community they lived in. I currently teach in a
low-income school with traditionally low levels of parent participation and
community support. My students didn’t realize that they had the ability to
change the community around them for the better nor help the people around
them. I wanted to assist my students in seeing the value of their learning
beyond the classroom doors. Community service-learning is an acknowledged and
valued part of college, high school, and some middle school curriculum. I
believed that the notion of learning while helping others should be an attitude
and way of thinking that should be developed at an early age.
Knowing that community-service learning is not usually a
part of elementary-school education, I was interested in how my students would
respond. I researched the question, “How
do students experience community-service learning in second grade?” I
believed that the structure of the learning experiences would be a significant
factor in whether or not my students had positive experiences with
community-service learning. As a child, the world revolves around you. Community
service learning assisted my students in seeing that the world revolves around
so many other people as well. The findings for this question helped me balance
the demand for high test scores with the ethical desire to assist students in
making pertinent and inspiring real world connections.